Title

Burnt landscape, Upwey no 2

Artist

Fred Williams

About

At the end of 1968, bushfires swept through the Dandenongs, one stopping less than one hundred meters from the Williams family home at Upwey. It was a terrifying experience that Williams recalled later as like 'living in a war'. However, the fires bore fruit artistically, as he devoted the rest of the year to works depicting the effects of the fire and its aftermath. In 'Burnt landscape, Upwey no. 1' and 'Burnt landscape, Upwey no. 2' the unaccustomed scale of the transformed landscape is revealed, its undergrowth stripped and its trees burnt away or laid bare by the flames.